Doc's Lesson
by Quazie89
Summary: In this short, one-shot drabble, Doc tries to teach Lightning a valuable life lesson, only to be ignored by the cocky, young, hotshot rookie. Takes place during the first movie.


Hello, everybody! Remember that line Doc says in the official trailer for Cars 3, "Be ready for what's coming?" That was what inspired this story, in which Doc tries teach Lightning a valuable life lesson, only to be ignored by the cocky, young racer, and it takes place sometime during the first movie, when the citizens of Radiator Springs are still holding Lightning hostage. I'm guessing that is when Doc said that, anyway. It's a short story, compared to some of my other ones on here. It's actually more like a drabble than anything, but I hope you enjoy it!

"Kid, you got to be ready for what's coming."

Lightning McQueen swerved around to face Doc, his already bright, crimson plating gleaming under the high, sweltering, afternoon sun, making Doc envy his youth. "What are you talking about, you loony, old geezer?" he asked, that infuriating, seemingly ever-present, arrogant smirk of his crossing back across his grill again.

Scoffing, Doc scowled at the kid, narrowing his stern gaze at him. "You're going to get old one of these days, old like me, and you're going to start slowing down," he said, struggling to get his breath, his grating voice wheezing. "No matter how much you think you're going to be ready for it, you never will be, and when the time does come, you're going to feel like a boulder fell on top of you and crushed your hood." His mouth twisted into a tight grimace of pain, contorting his grizzled grill.

The two of them were parked in the middle of Willy's Butte, Lightning having had to slow down for Doc when he had just happened to stop to look back once and had seen that the older car had been forced to hit his breaks in order to catch his breath and had fallen behind, putting a halt to the the grueling training exercise he had been making the kid suffer through. The heat hadn't seemed to have had any effect on Lightning, though. The kid was anxious, already eager to go and get the lesson over with, and Doc had to put the kid in his place. The heat was taking a toll on Doc, however, playing havoc with his breathing. He didn't do well under intense heat, not at his age. No, long gone were the days when he could drive along a lengthy, winding road beneath the summer sun without being winded before the drive had even begun and feeling as if his engine was being constricted by a vise.

The smirk fell from the kid's youthful grill, replaced, for a moment, by a strange, peculiar look, a look that was strange and peculiar for Lightning, anyway, one he hadn't seen it on the kid before. Doc didn't know if it was a look of uncertainty or fear, but it had to have been somewhere in between the two, and it was pretty satisfying to see either way. Maybe he had finally gotten through to the kid after all.

The look was gone a second later, however, replaced by one of upmost pride and haughtiness, and Doc's brief moment of victory had vanished as soon it had appeared, before he had even a chance to savor it, dashing all of the hopes and dreams he had so carefully, well-conceived for the kid along with it. "You're off your rocker, you nutty old coot," he said, and turned to leave, revving up his engine. "Nothing's going to stop me from winning that piston cup, nothing, I tell ya, because I'm never going to get as old and senile as you."

Then, the kid was gone, disappearing into the distance.

Doc watched him leave, his puttering engine popping and cracking until it eventually died. Not for the first time in his life, and probably most certainly not the last, he had ran out of gas. How he was going to get out of here now, he had no idea. He just hoped the kid had enough sense to come back and bring Red and Mater with him, because he was really going to need them, but he didn't put too much stock in him.

"That's kid's gonna go down hard and fast," he said, shaking his hood. "With a lousy attitude like that, it's only a matter of time."

But there was nothing there to hear him but the surrounding cactuses, and Doc was pretty sure they weren't listening.

The End


End file.
